Pros and Cons of Homeownership

We'll start with cons, because there aren't many.

Con:

• We had to buy a new fridge. That wasn't the bummer. The bummer is after it was installed, it did not get cold. Thursday after we moved was the earliest a technician could come look at it. Turns out it had no frion. Whoever let a fridge be sold without frion is a nincompoop. The good news is we have a loaner fridge while we wait for the new fridge to come (it has to be special ordered). While we waited for servicing we scraped by with a mini-fridge so it's nice to have a full size and be able to buy some fresh food again.

Um... yeah. That's it for cons. (Yes, other things may go wrong later, home ownership, blah blah blah. Don't rain on my home honeymoon.)

PROS! In no particular order:

• Attached Garage! My car is a dark blue so in the summer it reaches about 1000 degrees sitting in the sun. I love parking in a garage again! Also, I don't have to carry in/out EVERYTHING at the same time up/down 4 flights of stairs while carrying a toddler.  Shuttling stuff to/from the garage is now a delight.
• Baby has her own room! As a result, she is sleeping much better and we can spend our evenings after her bedtime in the living room, our bedroom, or both! I always heard a move can disrupt sleep for kids for a while. I'm so grateful that we've had the opposite experience. She goes down for bed an naps without a fuss and one nap a day lasts one hour. ONE HOUR. Guys! Look, I'm blogging again!
• Flowers! Our yard has beautiful and simple landscaping. All the plants are still relatively young, but I have roses and lilies that started blooming the week we moved and they are gorgeous!
• Linoleum! Namely, in the entry and dining area. It's not as ritzy as tile or wood, but it ain't beige carpet and that's what matters. 
• Shed! We have a cute, sturdy shed only a couple years old. Perfect place to keep the recreational equipment we've been keeping in our living room/cars for years.
• Kitchen Island! When we were house shopping, one of my requirements was at least one span of unadulterated counter space. I was so tired of rolling out dough and running into a wall. Now I have at least 30 square feet of unbounded counter top.
• Raised garden beds! Never though I'd be excited about that. I'm not much of a gardener, but I spent all morning pulling weeds from the flower beds and didn't hate life so that bodes well for the vegetable garden.
• Private laundry room! Past are the days of paying per load. Our situation at the apartment wasn't terrible; there was a laundry room on each floor of the building and I could do multiple loads at a time. But since I had to pay the same amount per load I always waited till I had a full load before washing anything. Now I have options galore! 
• Basement! We have a full unfinished basement. Finally space for food storage, camping equipment, and other random stuff that doesn't belong in our living space.
• Linen closet! I don't have to store all the extra sheets and towels in my closet, under the bed, or on the bathroom floor.
• No wall sharing! Every so often we catch ourselves thinking something that is no longer necessary. "Is the music too loud? Will somebody hate us for hammering/vacuuming to early/late?" Then we remember we are the sole occupants of our building and shake our heads, feel a little silly, and smile.
• Amazing shower head! We bought this for ourselves as a housewarming gift. It has like 10 different spray settings and an articulating arm so we can raise the head high enough that my husband can shower standing up straight. He's very tall, so this is very exciting.

That's all for now. There are definitely others, but baby girl is laughing in the next room which means her nap is over, which means blogging is over. 

Welcome home!

We are officially moved in! Moving day was a little stressful. I mean more stressful than it we anticipated it would be. As I'm married to Mr. Prepared, he lined up a crew of people to help load the truck weeks in advance. Then suddenly the night before/day of we learned only 2 guys could actually help after all. After some desperate calls to anyone we could think of, a couple of angels showed up and everything was loaded without working anyone to death. All the friends who committed to help me clean showed up so that was wonderful.  We definitely left the place cleaner than we found it.

At the other end, the truck was unloaded in a mere 30 minutes by 4 guys because apparently unloading goods and carrying them 20 feet is a little easier than transporting them from the 5th floor across the building, down an elevator, and across a parking lot into the truck.

I'm sure this was easiest move of our married lives, going from a small apartment to a house, so I'm fully appreciating that. I hope we don't have to move again for a long time.

Now comes the part that for some people is fun but for me is very stressful.: decorating. I'm a bit of an overthinker so facing a house full of decisions about colors, wall hangings, window treatments, bedding, pillows, etc. is overwhelming especially when I don't have a clear idea of what I like and what fits our style. It took me a year to finally decide which pictures to hang in the apartment, and where, and how, and then actually hang them.

The awesome thing about decorating though is we can do whatever we want! Paint! Hang! Nails everywhere! #nodeposit. Yay for home ownership!

BIG NEWS! No, I'm not pregnant.

I'm taking advantage of a rare moment to blog. The miniature human that lives with me freaks out when I sit down at the computer and insists on sitting in my lap for the duration of my computer task which makes typing very difficult.

Why don't you blog while she naps? you ask. Because she still takes 30-freaking-minute naps. (Please, no advice. Trust me, I've tried it.) I use that precious time to shower alone, exercise, eat food I don't want to share, fold laundry, or just do nothing because caring for a child means you are hyper vigilant pretty much every waking moment so the best thing ever is just to lie down and do nothing or something else just as mindless like play a dumb app or peruse Facebook.  Blogging takes mind work, so it does not get priority.

Why don't you blog after she goes to bed? Because my husband goes to work before I wake up and comes home 12 hours later so the only time we get to hang out is between baby's bedtime and our bedtime so anytime we get to spend together is precious, non-blogging time.

But tonight I actually have some time all to myself because baby's down for the night and my husband is sick in bed so I have some rare me-time wherein I'm limited to 1. computer stuff or 2. listening to music or a book with headphones because baby's sleeping in the living room and husband is in the bedroom. I can't turn on any lights unless I go in the bathroom or closet, neither of which is particularly cozy. Oh the joys of a one bedroom apartment... the joys of which are soon to end!

BECAUSE WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!

I've mentioned before that once in a while I have these moments where I feel like a real adult. Getting approved for a loan and being told to start shopping for a house was one of those moments. Buying major appliances this week was another.

At the end of winter my husband ended up getting hired on as a regular employee after all at the place he'd been temping so that was an awesome blessing. He loves his job and has been working long days as he finds his groove with his team. The 60 mile commute? Not so awesome. Since our lease is up this summer we weighed our housing options going forward and moving closer to work and maybe buying a house seemed like the way to go. Turns out we had great credit and someone willing to loan us a crap load of money to buy some real estate so we proceeded full steam ahead!

After weeks of house hunting and four offers, we finally had an offer accepted. Though it was frustrating to deal with such a competitive market (houses we liked were getting a dozen offers and selling for $10-$25K OVER list price) we are so blessed with the house we ended up snagging. It's a convenient to work for my husband, it's relatively new so nothing is falling apart and the inspection went well, the sellers don't have terrible taste so we don't need to re-carpet or paint to make the place livable, it's in a nice neighborhood, we have some family nearby, and it has a yard and shed and beautiful landscaping that is pretty but not too fussy (because I'm a lazy gardener. Remember basil #1?), and a full unfinished basement so if we end up staying there forever, we have plenty of space to spread out a family. Bonus: we'll close in a comfortable amount of time to get pre-move-in-details accomplished before we move for keeps and before we have to be out of the apartment.

For privacy reasons, I'm purposefully not providing pictures or specifics about where it's at or what it looks like, but if you're dying to know shoot me a message and if you aren't a creeper I don't know I'll send you details.

It's really nice to know that though we're moving to a new town, we aren't moving so far that things will be completely unfamiliar. We'll still be in Colorado and close enough to Denver to come into "The City" for special things. I'm glad we don't have to relocate to a whole new state for a whole new job that we may or may not love.

We're at this awkward phase now where it's still too early to start packing but I feel like I should be productive doing something to make the move easier, so I made a head start on deep cleaning the apartment. Our shower tile never looked so good.

Yay for happy changes! We'll miss Denver (mostly the food... ok we'll miss the friends too. and the parks) but we are soooo ready to have a house, and soon enough it'll feel like home.